Tuesday 22 November 2011 07.25 EST
First published on Tuesday 22 November 2011 07.25 EST

0-0, 4-0, 1-0, 1-1, 1-0, 1-0, 2-1, 1-0, 0-0, 1-0, 0-0, 2-0, 3-1, 0-0, 0-0. For much of this season it has felt as though Boca Juniors were playing in binary but, with four games remaining of the Apertura, they stand eight points clear at the top of the table and should end their three-year run without a title. It seems hard to credit now, but at the start of the season, there were realistic fears that Boca would be facing a relegation battle.

It only takes a glance at the bench to see who's responsible for the turnaround: Julio César Falcioni. His face is so pinched it appears there's a vacuum in his head constantly trying to suck the flesh through mouth and eye sockets, a process only the angry thrust of his chin is staving off.

Long creases that run from the sides of his nose and the corners of his mouth give him a look of permanent disapproval, as though he can't quite believe the frivolity of the modern football and its lust for entertainment. He, certainly, has done his best to wrench the Argentinian game away from fun and to the serious business of getting results.

In that regard, he is a man of the age. His era has been a long time coming, but it is here now: this is the age, tactically at least, of Argentinian austerity. Born in 1956, he had a respected career as a goalkeeper, first with Vélez Sársfield, and then in Colombia with América Cali with whom he won five league titles and three times lost in the final of the Libertadores. He was only a journeyman coach, though, until, in 2009, he led Banfield to the Apertura, the first title in the club's history and the first trophy he had won as a coach.

In December last year, Falcioni was appointed at Boca, who had been frustrated by their poor form under Alfio Basile and then Claudio Borghi. The return of Carlos Bianchi, the most successful coach in their history, as director of football had been a failure, although perhaps he affected a change in the recent psyche of the club. Bianchi's return as a player to Vélez coincided with Falcioni's last year there before his move to Colombia; the philosophies of both are rooted in the pragmatic ethic installed at Vélez by Victorio Spinetto in the middle of the last century (see The Blizzard Issue One). They are both pragmatists and, when the relegation of River Plate last season reminded the other grandees of Argentinian football of their mortality, pragmatism was what was needed.

Falcioni's start was poor. He lost four of his first six games, and in the last of them he left out a fully-fit Juan Román Riquelme. Perhaps that is not so obviously a suicide note as it once was, but it led to howls of protest. What it did, though, was demonstrate that Falcioni was avowedly his own man, somebody prepared to take difficult decisions even when they ran contrary to popular wisdom.

In the close season, he did it again, signing the 38-year-old centre-back Rolando Schiavi from relegated Gimnasia la Plata. Between 2001 and 2005, Schiavi had been a legend at Boca, winning seven major titles. Since then, though, his career had drifted. He won the Libertadores on a bizarre short-term loan to Estudiantes, earned a first call-up to the national side at the age of 36 (whatever else you can say about Diego Maradona as national coach, he was never bound by convention) and, if stories in the Argentinian tabloids are to be believed, had a holiday fling with Sandra Bullock (she denies it).

And now, suddenly, Schiavi is an ever-present, and arguably the player of the season, in a defence that has conceded just three goals in 15 games this season. The defensive record of seven set by Vélez Sarsfield in the 1993 Clausura is under threat.

So great is the shift to astringency as relegation paranoia has taken hold, in fact, that Racing, who lie second and are themselves still unbeaten, may end up breaking that record as well. Realistically they needed to win at the Bombonera on Sunday if they were to arrest Boca's charge, but this was one of the most predictable 0-0s there has ever been. True, Sebastián Saja made fine saves to keep out headers from Schiavi and Pablo Mouche, but even after the Racing midfielder Agustín Pelletieri had been sent off 10 minutes after half-time, there never a sense that Boca were about to lay siege to the Racing goal.

Racing, in fact, could have nicked it, had they been awarded a penalty when Teó Gutiérrez went down under challenge from Facundo Roncaglia. The referee Néstor Pitana didn't see it as a foul, though, and, worse, then yellow-carded Teó for his overexcited protest in which – seemingly less through malice than because rage had obliterated his sense of special awareness – he ran into the referee's arm. It was his second yellow, so he too was sent off.

A photograph used widely by the newspapers on Monday seemed to show Teó spitting at Pitana, but the controversy that provoked is probably without foundation. Although the still photo shows spittle leaving Teó's lips, there is nothing in the video to suggest he deliberately spat, and the likelihood is that the action of uttering of a common Argentinian euphemism for "referee" starting with a P led to saliva spraying from his lips.

Was it a foul? Well, probably, although given the angle at which the ball cannoned away from the challenge, it's easy to see why the referee, from his angle, thought Roncaglia had made a clean tackle. And it would be a brave referee who gave a penalty and sent off a Boca player in the final minute of a level game at a packed and expectant Bombonera; it's not a decision to be made if you're not surer than sure.

So Boca rumble on. It may not be pretty, but it is effective, and it's all the more admirable given the injuries they have suffered. There were concerns as to how they could replace Martín Palermo, but in truth his retirement has probably been a blessing and not just because of the effect his poor relationship with Riquelme was having on the rest of the squad. The front pairing of Dario Cvitanich, on loan from Ajax, and the long-suffering Lucas Viatri was more varied and fluent than anything involving Palermo. When Viatri suffered knee ligament damage, the 21-year-old Nicolás Blandi stepped in with four goals in two games – an unimaginable feast by Falcioni's standards.

Mouche remains hugely frustrating, but his habit of drawing left to link with Clemente Rodríguez has produced a steady supply of crosses. So good has Leandro Somoza been in the holding role that Sebastián Battaglia has barely been missed, while Cristian Chavez has deputised well in Riquelme's many injury absences.

Really, though, this success, and with just four points needed from four remaining games it surely will be a success, is down to one man, the one scowling in the faded T-shirt and the ill-fitting jeans on the touchline: Falcioni. This has been a season for no frills, and there is nobody so good at stripping the game to functionality as he.